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3 Tactics for Improving Your Email Response Rate in 2019

We may be approaching the end of 2018, but when it comes to email marketing, you know the cycle never ends.

It doesn’t matter if you’re in sales, marketing, or business dev, and it doesn’t matter if you’re launching a product, expanding into a new market, or boosting your holiday sales—you probably have campaigns launching year round.

Because we’re approaching the end of 2018, it’s about time we look back and reflect on our successes, failures, wins, and losses. And you know just as well as anyone: When you’re looking to grow your business, increase sales, or acquire new clients, you don’t settle for good enough.

If you haven’t been totally satisfied with your email response rate on your campaigns this year, or you’re just trying to move the needle a bit further, then it’s time to revisit the drawing board. There are many ways to improve your email response rate—both conventional and unconventional. Some, you’ve read a thousand times. Others, you may have seen once, twice, or never at all.

And these are the ones we love. These are the ones that move the needle and help you level up even after you’ve revised, re-revised, even re-re-re-re-revised that perfect subject line to boost your open rate.

Here are some tricks and tactics for improving your email response rate in 2019 and starting next year on the right foot.

3 Tactics for Improving Your Email Response Rate

1. Segment Your Lists Better and Earlier

The success of your email campaigns relies in large part on how well you segment your email lists. After all, you know an email list isn’t a completely homogenous blob of people—right?

Right! A seasonal, autumn-themed email may not resonate with a mother in Southern California as it might for a mother in Wisconsin. Even if they’re both in your target market! You need to reach both moms where they are, and that means segmenting your lists earlier than you might be used to.

Are you using Facebook to send users to your email signup? Then use Facebook’s robust demographic information along with Facebook Pixel to preserve that info so you can send multiple versions of that fall campaign instead of one. Do you purchase email lists? If so, when was the last time you actually looked at the segmenting opportunities available?

Get away from email list autopilot and get granular with your segmenting. Your email response rate will thank you.

2. Make Your Messages Mobile Friendly

In 2018, mobile compatibility should be a no-brainer. But it’s surprising how many great email campaigns have been sunk because they’re stuck in 2005.

Each and every year, more and more emails are read on mobile devices, and as that number rises, so will the number of email responses you miss out on because a prospect opens up your email and closes it after being put off by funky formatting. It doesn’t matter how great your call-to-action might be! Your openers won’t be readers—and they certainly won’t be responders—if your emails aren’t mobile-friendly. Most major email marketing platforms have options for building mobile-friendly campaigns, and they’re definitely worth your time.

To improve your email response rate in 2019, you need to understand the future is increasingly mobile. So your emails should be, too.

3. Make Your CTAs More Definitive

If you want a response, you need to give people something to respond to. Sadly, not enough marketers take this message to heart, and their response rates on their email campaigns take the hit.

A wishy-washy call-to-action is nearly as bad as no call-to-action at all. It surely won’t get people to pick up the phone, make the purchase, or download more information. What is the objective of your email campaign, and what action best serves that objective?

Then think about ways to make it even clearer. If you’re trying to get someone to call you so you can discuss your services, don’t just give them a phone number and leave it. Ask them if they’re available on a specific day at a specific time! They might say they’re busy, but they said something. And you can work with that.

In 2019, you need to get more specific. Your response rates will reflect the improvement, and so will your bottom line.

Boosting Your Email Response Rate

Email marketing is as much of an art as it is a science. Small, subtle changes add up to improvements across the board—from open rates, to response rates, and all the way to conversions!

The trick is to never stay satisfied. The moment you decide to push past the usual tactics for improving your email strategy is the moment you begin transforming your email marketing numbers. From there, the sky—or the inbox—is the limit.